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by ACometAppears



Series: Who The Hell Is Bucky? [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 10:16:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1547105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACometAppears/pseuds/ACometAppears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky goes back to Brooklyn, and watches Steve from afar, trying to work out how to talk to him. He follows him secretly, wondering if - when he eventually plucks up the courage to talk to him - he'll want to attack him, or ask him for help. Third part of the 'Who The Hell Is Bucky?' series.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the incredible amount of support you've shown for the last two parts of this series!! I might actually do a fourth part - watch this space. Cheers!!

Months after Captain America was rescued by the Winter Soldier, he makes his way home in the evening, alone, with his groceries. While most of the country might think he would never do anything as mundane as grocery shopping, everyone in his neighbourhood thinks nothing of seeing Captain Rogers strolling down the street at all hours of the day, brown paper bags jostling as he strides with purpose. Even his gait seems patriotic, and earnest. 

He’s not worried about being attacked. Everyone in this neighbourhood knows him – hell, everyone in _America_ knows him. While he faced a bit of a backlash after he helped Natasha Romanoff air SHIELD’s dirty laundry in public, the fuss died down pretty soon once the world learned the awful things that those previously hidden files she'd published actually contained, and when they realised that he had, in fact, saved millions of lives by stopping project Insight from being fully realised. 

So he isn’t afraid of being accosted in the street – not anymore. And besides, he can take care of himself – no one's denying that – but he’d hate to have to drop all his fresh produce on the floor just to fight some misguided punk in the street. That would be awful. 

However, though no one's tried to hurt him of late, he still has the feeling that someone is watching him: he eyes security cameras and CCTV with suspicion as he walks, remembering the words he’s had with Nick Fury about freedom and fear, and wondering which of those is most applicable to America post-SHIELD. 

He figures that there's still someone out there doing what SHIELD used to, even if its been largely disbanded: there are still government agents keeping track of him, for certain. They can't afford to let him off their radar, he supposes. So he thinks nothing of it. 

But he should. 

_Same store every time. Like clockwork._ The soldier hides in one of the twelve different hiding spots by the store he’s taken to over the last month, observing Steve Rogers say a friendly goodbye to the clerk, as he sets off back home. Steve carries on unaware that he’s being observed, as the soldier watches him from under a cap, his hands in the pockets of his dark-green jacket, as he leans against the dirty alley wall. The shadows hide him: only his eyes shine out from the darkness, though they’re masking untold horrors as black as his surroundings. 

When Steve reaches an appropriate distance – not so close he’ll notice the soldier, not so far that he won’t be observable – Sergeant Barnes makes his move. He moves as casually as he can manage: even after all this time, he still has the urge to walk stiffly and with a sense of violent purpose, as if he is on his way to complete a mission . . . On his way to kill. 

. . . Although, most of the time, he doesn’t know what will happen if one day Steve discovers him. He alternates between believing he will be able to turn tail and run, and believing he’ll break down; the worst possibility by far, and the one he has nightmares about, is that he will try and assassinate Steve. His greatest fear is that he will lose control, and succeed. He's not sure he's shaken off the part of him that is a killer by default.

So he has to keep his distance. He’s just not ready to see which course of action his body – and his mind – would choose, should Steve confront him; should Steve learn that he follows him, like this. 

The soldier’s walk is some half-way normal thing, now, even after a whole lot of practise. But he knows how not to be noticed. 

Steve nods at passers-by, and greets a few people cheerily. One or two people say _how ya doing, Cap?_ And _looking good, Cap!_ But no one sees Sergeant Barnes. He keeps to the shadows just enough; avoids just the right amount of people, so he isn’t detected. 

When Steve arrives at his apartment building, the soldier retreats to one of the nine hiding places he uses to observe him around it, as he unlocks the door. With the usual cursory look around – _what are you looking for, Steve?_ – Captain America makes his way into the building, with a weary sigh, his happy expression dropping off his face when he thinks no one can see him. It makes the soldier think – it makes him think that he would like to, that he wants to – it makes him-

. . . It makes him _feel_.

It makes him feel _sad_. 

He slinks out of his hiding place, and peaks into the building through the glass in the door – but Captain Rogers is gone. He’d have to press the buzzer, now, to summon him down from his third floor apartment. The soldier frowns, his stony expression laced with the faintest hint of the sadness dragging him down inside; dampening down his usual killer instinct. Not for the first time, he’s ashamed as he thinks that being a cold, heartless killer was easier than this – he tries his best not to wish that the machines will be waiting for him, ready to wipe him, when he returns to the ramshackle warehouse where he lays his head to rest for a fitful sleep each night. 

It’s not home. How can it be? . . . He doesn’t have a home. 

Suddenly, a face appears behind the glass he’s gazing at – Captain Rogers, who was hiding to one side, appears and looks out at him, for a split second. The soldier’s eyes widen and for a moment, he’s a deer caught in the headlights: Steve’s blue eyes, searching and slightly guarded, are staring out at him. 

He ducks out of the way of the glass before he can be recognised, and swoops around, hands in his pockets, ducking his head down so his face isn’t visible underneath his cap, as he walks swiftly away – he realises that he’s probably not being as inconspicuous as he’d like at that moment, but he doesn’t care – because he can hear Captain Rogers opening the door, and calling out to him – 

“Hey! – Hey, come back!” He breaks into a run, as he hears, “Why are you following me? – Get back here, wait!” 

Steve’s voice is desperate, but Bucky won’t let him catch up: he sprints away as fast as he can, as if his life depends on it, ducking into one of the alleys he half-remembers from his childhood, half-remembers from his surveillance of Steve this past month. 

He’s not ready to face him yet. _Not like this. No._

_Soon, but – but-_

Steve is catching up, so he throws away his jacket, and his cap, hoping that his long-sleeved shirt and unseasonable gloves will disguise his arm; he hopes to throw Steve off his trail by ditching the disguise – he knows it shouldn’t work. But it does. 

Steve stops chasing the scruffy man, with his shaggy brown hair and three days’ worth of stubble growth, and sighs, panting slightly. That guy sure could run. He frowns sadly – this mustn’t have been the first time that guy had followed him home. He must be the person Steve has felt watching him, this whole time - he doesn't get many other visitors, at all, anymore. He stares at the cap and the jacket on the ground for a moment, before picking them up. _He might come back for them_. 

But who was he? His eyes were bright, but he was dishevelled, and he barely stayed still – at least, not long enough for Steve to recognise him. Perhaps a fan? . . . He must be local, to know these streets well enough to lose a guy who grew up in them. But Steve hadn’t seen him before . . . Had he? 

He shook his head and, taking the cap and jacket with him, headed home, feeling defeated. _Maybe one day_. 

It takes Bucky another week to pluck up the courage to see Steve again. He watches him leave the store, but doesn’t follow him, the first day. The next, he watches him cross the street, from the top of a building he walks past every day. The next, he stands as far down the street as possible, and watches him enter his apartment. 

The next, he watches him from the building opposite. Through Steve’s window, Bucky can see him as he makes a few phone calls; cooks his dinner; works out; and finally, just before he retires for the night and shuts his blind, frowns down at some browning photographs. Under the cover of darkness, the soldier uses stolen binoculars to watch as Steve rubs his red eyes, wiping away a few tears that stubbornly insist on falling. He stows the pictures away in a box he keeps under his bed, and changes, before pulling his blinds down. 

Bucky frowns, biting his lip – Steve’s body has changed so much – _hell, I didn’t even know he had abs before_ – but his mind . . . His heart, is exactly the same. Looking at old photos, and getting all emotional. He was always kinda soft – but now, even this battle-hardened, strong-as-an-ox Steve cries looking at those pictures. The soldier knows who they’re of. 

_Steve misses me_ , he thinks. _He’s lonely, and he misses me._

 _And he needs me_. 

He starts to feel selfish: running away might have been what he wanted; watching him might be interesting to him, and what he needs, but what does _Steve_ need? 

Everyone knows that Steve went away searching for the Winter Soldier for a few months, before moving into this apartment (apparently his old bank account gained quite a bit of interest, since 1944) – but he never found him. 

And he never will. Because Sergeant James Barnes – while he has the Winter Soldier’s arm, and killer instinct, and combat skills – is determined never to be him, ever again. Right now – tentatively – he likes to think of himself as close to becoming Bucky again.  
Well – as close as he's ever going to get. 

So, why not go to him? Why not go and put Steve out of his misery, instead of prolonging it? . . . Because he’s scared of rejection: he isn’t that old Bucky, and perhaps he never will be – will Steve accept him, as he is, now? 

If there’s one thing Sergeant Barnes does know, it’s that the old Bucky would face this – would face anything – for Steve. This is just like every other situation where Steve was getting beat up – whether by some bully, or by himself – and Bucky had the power to stop it. 

He can stop it this time, too. He owes him that much. 

He returns to his night-time hiding place – an abandoned warehouse, where he stores his meagre few possessions (stolen clothes, and food taken from the back of a van) – and stares down at the jacket – also stolen – that he took from the Captain America exhibit, at the museum in DC. _Everything I have is stolen_ , he thinks. 

_. . . Tomorrow_ , he thinks. _You’re gonna get to be him. You're gonna go save Steve from himself_. 

Slipping the jacket on over his prosthesis, while it feels different to how he thinks it felt when he had two functional flesh-and-blood-arms, feels . . . _Right_. For the first time since he stole it, wearing the jacket feels not only okay, but good, because he knows he’s doing something the old Bucky would very much approve of: he’s going to be Steve’s friend, again - or he's gonna try his best, at least. He’s different from before, but he hopes the old man accepts him as he is now. 

_I’m with you til the end of the line_ , the shaky memory of Steve tells him, knocking and scratching at his consciousness from the other side of a hazy wall of conditioning and programming that he’s supposed to have shaken off by now. _Steve had said that, hadn’t he? . . . And he’d meant it?_

As he approaches Steve’s door, oblivious to the gentle rain drifting from the midst of the summer storm he’s been caught in, he thinks to himself, _well, you’re about to find out_. 

Wearing his old jacket, worn to the point of being tailored to his frame, Bucky reaches out with his metal hand, and presses the buzzer for Steve’s flat – _Apartment A, floor 3_ – before shoving the limb back down again, and into his pocket. _Steve can’t see that_ , he thinks. _What if he takes it back? What if he doesn’t want me anymore?_

_. . . Why would anyone want you, anyway?_ A snide voice in his head whispers to him, a hint of amusement present amidst the bile and vitriol. _You’re broken, soldier. Erratic, and flawed. The only place you’re any good is in battle – or the fridge. You want to go back in the fridge? At least there you don’t have to feel. Don’t have to think. Don’t have to see his disappointed face, as he sees your metal arm, and talks to you and realises you’re just some stranger that tried to kill him-_

“Did you come back for your-”

He looks up, unaware that he’s been lost in his reverie for so long that Steve’s already arrived downstairs - he's brought the soldier's jacket and cap - _he must not get many other visitors, at least at this hour._ A dumb expression washes over his face, as his eyes happen across the soldier’s scruffy face. 

Steve's hands go limp, and the clothes fall to the floor. With his hair tucked behind his ears, and with his hands in his pockets (almost casually – _almost_ – but too tense, too forced) . . . This guy looks like – he looks like-

“. . . Bucky?” 

The two syllables are breathless and broken; Steve’s whole body sags, and his breathing comes slightly harsher than before. Sergeant Barnes doesn’t move a muscle – until Steve reaches forward for him. His eyes widen, and he backs away quickly – it takes all his courage not to run away again; only to take that one step away, and remain civil and guarded, rather than defensive, or – _God, no, please, no more_ – aggressive. 

Steve’s face crumples slightly and he tries not to look offended and upset, as he withdraws his hands. One drops dumbly to his side, while the other takes hold of the doorframe. He looks like he can’t believe his luck: to be presented with the old friend he pines after, and tried to find for months – only for him to shrink away from his touch, and look uncertain and defensive in his presence. 

There’s a moment of silence; a stalemate, where both Sergeant Barnes and Captain Rogers look one another up and down, taking in the sight of each other. 

_Thinner_ , Steve realises. _Bucky is thinner – he’s always been lean, but he hasn’t been eating enough. He hasn’t shaved in days – god, where has he been living? What’s he been eating? Where’s he been sleeping? . . . Where did he get his clothes? Is that – is that his old-?_

“Did you mean it?” 

Bucky’s voice is harder than Steve remembers – he has less of a Brooklyn accent. But he doesn’t have a Russian accent, so that’s something, he guesses. It takes him a moment to realise he’s been asked a question. 

“What?” He asks, feeling dumb. Bucky pauses for a long time, and he’s afraid he’s blown his one chance at reconciliation already. But, finally, Bucky speaks again:  
“When you said _til the end of the line_ ,” He quotes the words that have been echoing through his mind – through his dreams, between the red and the fire and the gunshots and the vomit and the screaming – ever since he dived into that river after his old friend. 

Steve withdraws slightly, taking a deep breath, and gambling it all on one memory being present, now, in Bucky’s mind:  
“Did you?” 

_Did_ I _mean it, when I said til the end of the line?_ Bucky thinks for a moment, puzzled as he stares at Steve’s expectant face; fleshed out or thin, he’s always been capable of expressing so much emotion with his face; with his eyes, as he mourned, first for his father, then his mother, then for _him_ -

It’s then that the memories come back at full force. Bucky’s tongue moves around the words, forming them, mouthing the words he told Steve after the funeral all those years ago, when he was just some dumb kid from Brooklyn who wouldn’t run away from a fight – and really, what had changed? 

Nothing. Nothing had changed. Steve would still never run away from a fight – he’d only ever stop fighting if the person he was fighting was Bucky. Because he would always be there for Bucky, no matter what. 

And he - _Bucky_ \- would always be there for Steve, too.

He nods once. 

Very carefully, and hesitantly, he reaches out with his right hand, and places it on Steve’s shoulder – just like he did, all those years ago. Steve tentatively reaches up to mirror the gesture; Bucky freezes slightly, when he realises he will have to withdraw his metal hand from his pocket if he wants to hug Steve – but _God, does he want to hug him now he’s thought of that – he hasn’t touched anyone since the day he saved Steve’s life, and it’s Steve, so of course he wants to hug him, feel he’s alive, listen to his heartbeat and clutch onto him just to make sure that, yes, he’s here, he saved him, he didn’t kill him, they can fix this, we can fix this-_

Wincing when Steve lays his eyes on the metal limb, Bucky cautiously steps closer than arm’s length – but to his surprise and euphoric delight, Steve barely even reacts to the limb: he doesn’t stare, or recoil. He just pulls him closer, until they're clinging to one another. Bucky can feel Steve’s hand in his unwashed hair, not withdrawing in disgust, but softly cradling the back of his head as if he's something precious. Not delicate, but . . . Treasured. Wanted, but not just as a weapon, or a tool, or a means to an end . . . _Loved_. 

For the first time since – since he could remember – Bucky lets go. 

Steve just stands there, trying to control his breathing, as Bucky tucks his head into the side of his neck, and sobs. The cries are silent – _and doesn’t that just say it all? Maybe they didn’t let him make noise. Maybe they didn’t ever let him cry. Maybe he learned to be silent, before they got rid of all his emotion altogether._

 _Or, well . . . Before they thought they did. Before they tried, and failed_. 

Steve doesn’t know if this is the old Bucky, or not – sure, this guy remembers comforting him after his Mom’s funeral, but . . . That doesn’t mean he's the same man who picked up his shield when he couldn’t; the same man who fell into that ravine. Steve's pretty sure Bucky can't answer any of those questions, right now, anyway. But Steve doesn’t care. Bucky is back – he's here, now, and he is most definitely showing emotion. The old Bucky wouldn’t do this – but maybe this is a change for the better. He doesn’t want to get shut out, or be abandoned by his best friend, ever again. 

And Bucky – well, for the first time in such a long time, his reflex isn’t to attack, or to defend, but to reciprocate: when Steve holds him, he holds on right back. There's a desperate quality to the embrace: he holds him like he thinks he’s going to lose him for another 70 years, or perhaps forever; like he’s afraid they won’t find one another again, if it happens again. Steve clings to him the same way: at that moment, they’re finally on the same side, after such a very long time. 

It’s like they’re at the Stark expo again, and he’s seeing Bucky off to go to war – but, even after all that’s happened, he’s glad that he is, instead, welcoming him home. He has Bucky back, even if it’s just for one moment. 

. . . Maybe he's Bucky, maybe he isn’t. But as he withdraws just far enough to look into Steve’s eyes wordlessly, biting his lip again and still clinging to him, making sure he's still there, and real – as Steve smiles at him through his pain, they both know that it doesn’t matter if he's the old Bucky or not. 

It only matters that he is home.


End file.
